After Zygmunt's return we published the second issue of On Guard with a detailed description of Treblinka. But even now the population stubbornly refused to believe the truth. They simply closed their eyes to the unpleasant facts and fought against them with all the means at their disposal.
In the meantime the Germans, not too discriminating in their choice of methods, introduced a new propaganda twist. They promised--and actually gave--three kilograms of bread and one kilogram of marmalade to everyone who voluntarily registered for "deportation". The offer was more than sufficient. Once the bait was thrown, propaganda and hunger did the rest. The propaganda value of the measure lay in the fact that it was truly an excellent argument against the "stories" about gas chambers ("why would they be giving bread away if they intended to murder them?..."). The hunger, an even stronger persuader, magnified the picture of three brown, crusty loaves of bread until nothing was visible beyond it. Their taste which one could almost feel in one's mouth--it was only a short walk from one's home to the "Umschlagplatz" from which the cars left--blinded people to all the other things at the end of the same road. Their smell, familiar, delicious, befogged one's mind, made it unable to grasp the things which would normally have been so very obvious. There were times when hundreds of people had to wait on line for several days to be "deported". The number of people anxious to obtain the three kilograms of bread was such that the transports, now leaving twice daily with 12,000 people, could not accommodate them all.
The noose around the ghetto was now becoming tighter and tighter. After a short period of time all of the so-called "Little Ghetto" (the neighbourhood of Twarda and Pahska Streets) had been emptied of all its inhabitants. In ten days all "volunteers", children's homes ("Korczak's Children"), and refugee shelters were shipped out, and the systematic "blockades" of city blocks and streets began. People with knapsacks would escape from street to street, trying to guess in advance the area of the next "blockade", and stay away from it.
The gendarmes, Ukrainians and Jewish police cooperate nicely. The roles are meticulously and precisely divided. The gendarmes surround the streets; the Ukrainians, in front of the gendarmes, encircle the houses closely; the Jewish police walk into the courtyards and summon all the inhabitants. "All Jews must come down. 30 kilograms of baggage allowed. Those remaining inside shall be shot..." And once again the same summons. People run from all staircases. Nervously, on the run, they clothe themselves in whatever is handy. Some descend as they are, sometimes straight from bed, others are carrying everything they can possibly take along, knapsacks, packages, pots and pans. People cast frightened glances at one another, the worst has happened. Trembling, they form groups in front of the house. They are not allowed to talk but they still try to gain the policemen's pity. From nearby houses similar groups of trembling, completely exhausted people arrive and form into one long column. A gendarme beckons with his rifle to a casual passer-by who, having been warned too late, was unable to escape the doomed street. A Jewish policeman pulls him by his sleeve or by his neck into the column in front of the house. If the policeman is half-way decent, he hides a small piece of paper with the scribbled address of the victim's family--to let them know... Now the deserted houses, the apartment entrances ajar according to regulations, are given a quick once-over by the Ukrainians. They open closed apartments with a single kick of their heavy boots, with a single blow of a rifle butt. Two, three shots signify the death of those few who did not heed the call and remained in their homes. The "blockade" is finished. On somebody's table an unfinished cup of tea gets cold, flies finish somebody's piece of bread.
People outside of the "blockaded" area hopelessly look for relatives and friends among the rectangular groups surrounded by Ukrainians and Jewish policemen. The columns slowly march through the streets. Behind them, in a single row, requisitioned "rikshas" carry the old and the children.
It is a long way to the "Umschlag". The Deportation Point, from which the cars leave, is situated on the very edge of the ghetto, on Stawki Street. The tall walls surrounding it and closely guarded by gendarmes are broken at only one narrow place. Through this entrance the groups of helpless, powerless people are brought in. Everyone holds some papers, working certificates, identification cards. The gendarme at the entrance looks them over briefly. "Rechts"--means life, "links"--means death. Although everyone knows in advance the futility of all arguments, he still tries to show his particular helpfulness to German industry, to his German master, and hopes for the magic little order, "rechts". The gendarme does not even listen. Sometimes he orders the passing people to show him their hands--he chooses all small ones: "rechts"; sometimes he separates blondes: "links"; in the morning he favours short people; in the evening he takes a liking to tall ones. "Links", "links", "links".
The human torrent grows, deepens, floods the square, floods three large three-storey buildings, former schools. More people are assembled here than are necessary to fill the next four days' quota, they are just being brought in as "reserves". People wait four or five days before they are loaded into the railroad cars. People fill every inch of free space, crowd the buildings, bivouac in empty rooms, hallways, on the stairs. Dirty, slimy mud floods the floors. One's foot sinks in human excrement at every step. The odour of sweat and urine sticks in one's throat. There are no panes in the windows, and the nights are cold. Some are dressed only in night-shirts or house-coats.
On the second day hunger begins to twist the stomach in painful spasms, cracked lips long for a drop of water. The times when people were given three loaves of bread are long since gone. Sweating, feverish children lie helplessly in their mothers'arms. People seem to shrink, become smaller, greyer.
All eyes have a wild, crazy, fearful look. People look pale, helpless, desperate. There is a sudden flash of revelation that soon the worst, the incredible, the thing one would not believe to the very last moment is bound to happen. Here, in this crowded square, all the continually nursed illusions collapse, all the brittle hopes that "maybe I may save myself and my dearest ones from total destruction"... collapse. A nightmare settles on one's chest, grips one's throat, shoves one's eyes out of their sockets, opens one's mouth to a soundless cry. An old man imploringly and feverishly hangs on to strangers around him. A helplessly suffering mother presses three children to her heart. One wants to yell, but there is nobody to yell to; to implore, to argue--there is nobody to argue with; one is alone, completely alone in this multitudinous crowd. One can almost feel the ten--nay, hundred, thousand--rifles aimed at one's heart. The figures of the Ukrainians grow to gigantic proportions. And then one does not know of anything any more, does not think about anything, one sits down dully in a corner, right in the mud and dung of the wet floor. The air becomes more and more stuffy, the place becomes more and more crowded, not because of the thousands of bodies and the odour of the rooms, but because of the sudden understanding that all is lost, that nothing can be done, that one must perish.
Possibilities of leaving the "Umschlag" did exist, but they were a drop in the sea of the thousands awaiting help. The Germans themselves established these possibilities when they transferred a small children's hospital from the Little Ghetto into one of the "Umschlag" buildings and opened an emergency aid station there--a malicious gesture toward those sentenced to death. Twice daily, in the morning and in the evening, the personnel working in the aid station was changed. All the aid station workers were clad in white coats and all were issued working certificates. Thus it was sufficient to dress somebody in a white coat to enable him to be taken out with the crew of doctors and nurses. Some nurses took strange children into their arms and walked out with them claiming they were their own. With older people the matter was more difficult. These could only be sent to the cemetery or to a hospital for adults situated outside the enclosure, a procedure likewise sanctioned by the Germans for no apparent reason. Thus, healthy people were smuggled out of the "Umschlag ground" in ambulances and in coffins. After a while, however, the Germans began to check the ambulances and the condition of the "sick". Therefore, in order to show undeniable evidence, those old men and women whose death was slated to be temporarily postponed by virtue of somebody's intervention or as a personal favour, were brought to a small room in the aid station, behind the reception room. Here their legs were broken without anaesthesia.